themselves? >> absolutely. if you become governor of any state in the country, your budget is tied to the federal budget. and when you do your first budget you're shocked that all federal money is free money. did you do that? that is the way is explain to you. they're involved in every agency. what i have done is go through agency by agency because there will be a grand where they will get you involved in a program that you might not be interested in but everybody -- is free money. we fight to defend states rights all the time. in our state i want to have honest, fair elections. if you are not u.s. citizen you don't have the right to vote in our state. there was a federal database called save our homeland security we asked for that we as taxpayers paid for the we have a

right to end it -- that wouldn't give it to us so we ended up in a lawsuit and we won. we won because we are on the right side. we have to look at every day about our own state sovereignty and what our own rights are. goes back to the alexander hamilton quote. for all of us is individuals weathered is economic freedom or just freedom to live our lives the way we want to we have got to focus on states rights because if we don't and the federal government will run everything about our lives. let me thank you for the opportunity to be here, thank you for what you do every day. have a great day. >> the u.s. constitution and to screen court republican senator mike lee of utah and ted crews of texas. this is about an hour. >> good afternoon, ladies and

gentlemen. our mid afternoon session. good afternoon. my name is leonard leo and i'm vice presidents of the federalist society. cote you are all having a great time at our 30th anniversary convention. it is hard to believe this is the third occasion on which we are welcoming united states senator mike lee. seems like yesterday, senator, when you came to us just after your election in 2010 presenting your vision of our system of limited constitutional government. i remember you describing with a sense of hope and enthusiasm the desire you saw among the people along your campaign trail for a return to our founding principles. i suspect that those principles to 9 resonate at quite the same

pitch in all ways of the senate as they did among the utah people on the campaign trail but it is apparent from his work and effort, senator lee is irrepressible. in the midst of consideration of legislation as well as participation in oversight at the confirmation process, senator lee has harkened back to basic constitutional principles and restrict for structural constitution more tonight remember any other senator doing. is this having an impact? the senate by design is a place where things move very slowly. some more time will be needed to determine whether senator lee is helping to pave the way for a lasting cultural shift in congress, but i think we do know this, more individuals have been inspired to run for public office because of senator lee's work and efforts because they want the strength and respect of

the original constitution in washington. more americans are talking about the constitution because of senator lee and more intelligently because of him and members of the senate including some in his own caucus are feeling a little more pain and anxiety when they back efforts that lack a firm foundation in the founding principles. knowing that senator lee will be there at the barricades with a copy of this dog your pocket constitution. welcome back senator lee. [applause] >> thank you. is good to be among friends. also hard to believe it has been two years since i was elected, almost two years since i took office. i'm glad we will be hearing from my good friend and soon-to-be colleague ted cruise in just a little while. i was very pleased when he was elected. i met him just a couple years

ago just after my election and shortly before he announced his candidacy. i look forward to joining him and having enjoy in our body. i especially look forward to no longer being the newest member of the senate. has been a rough transition. the security staff is finally recognizing me as a senator. i know offer get carded. i am from utah. i am not used to getting card is the -- it actually happened a lot when i first got there. they would look at me like what you doing? these guys are very heavily armed and i can't argue with them so i would produce my id, i will even show it to you, this little card that says united states senator representing ut, expiration jan. third. i don't know if that is what i personally expire -- we went through this little sure raid every so often, i discovered a

shortcut to it. this little lapel pin was given to me after i was sworn in. i came to call it my story senator king because when i got carded at the senate i would point to and they would say sorry, come in. it works most of the time, not all the time. not too long ago i was on the floor of the senate and i had one hand gently resting on one of the desks, and one of the non uniform security staffers came to me and said will you please not lean on the senator's desk? it was weird that he said don't lean on your desk but i respond well to authority and said i am sorry, it won't happen again and he said are you with the minority? i said what do you mean? on this vote or the next? i don't always vote with my party but i do most of the time. >> do you work for the minority leader?

i thought he was getting philosophical? of course i support mitch mcconnell. he is our leader. are you part of the minority leader's staff? that i realized he doesn't get it so i pointed to the sorry senator with a blank stare. he had no idea what i meant to. at that point i timidly said i am senator lee. what? my name is mike lee. i represent a state called you saw. it resembles the chair. he finally got it. at that point the color drained from his face and he said i am terribly sorry. my name is steve and you if you want to report me. then he ran for the door. i felt bad for steve. i like steve. i chased after him to make sure he knew no hard feelings. every time i see steve in the hall i say hi, steve so he knows there are no hard feelings. only recently did it occur to me his name is probably not steve.

smurfs so when i started this year, 2012, i was looking forward to two things. two steps that i believe would help us fundamentally transform our government into that kind of government or more closely representing -- resembling that kind of government our founding fathers envisioned for us. one of those events i knew whitaker most likely in june. probably toward the end of june. probably the last -- the last thursday of june. the other date that i recognized as potentially transform it of of our government, the other dates i recognized would probably have a positive impact on the development of our system

of government is november 6th. and i would like to say at the outset i want to thank chief justice robert for preparing the on june 28th for the disappointment i would feel on november 6th. i approached the court that day with a lot of anticipation. i had read all the briefs in that case. i had sat through four day the moral arguments in that case. i have watched every movement, every eye twitch, every response to every question, every facial expression. i listened closely to all the questions. i thought i knew what the answer was going to be. a lot of it was wishful thinking but i approached the courtroom that day with a lot of anticipation and a lot of hopefulness. as i took my seat in the bar section of the supreme court i looked around, looked to my right and slightly behind me. the section of the court room where the law clerks its. a few years earlier when i

served as a law clerk to justice samuel lolita and i sat there with my friend chris, i remembered how much fun it was to watch the justices announce a decision they had been working on. we knew the results before the rest of the audience did. it was fun to watch their reactions. i looked to my right and to the front of me and i saw the podium where i have seen so many lawyers stand over the years, countless lawyers i have seen stand there ever since i started attending supreme court arguments at the age of 10. it was an automatic step at a child. many of those lawyers stood there shaking it. you could see them even from the back of the court room shaking because they were so nervous, they're shaking got even more severe, more shaking, other lawyers have stood there as calm as if they were discussing the weather with a friend. my dad had been in the latter category.

i had seen him argue in that court many times. sometimes i thought he was too casual but he was good at what he did. i could see his voice resonating in the microphone as i've got back to the last, mark cuba for the court against a very worthy opposing counsel named john roberts. that was a good day, an interesting day. as these thoughts were racing through my head sooner or later the clock struck 10 and at the appointed hour the gavel and clock operated almost as if in perfect union. i heard the familiar pound of the gavel by the marshall and the familiar incantation oh yeah a all persons before the supreme court of the united states, get their attention, court is now and saying, god save the united states and the honorable court andes justices magically materialize behind these draperies. i listened to them start to announce the decision is.

true to form the court held the most interesting case for the last case. so the emotion in the room reached a certain crescendo by the time it came time for the court to announce its ruling. i along with most of the conservatives in varoom was elated when she justice roberts started announcing the opinion. i took that as a very good omen. i was even more elated as he launched into the constitutional commerce clause, and for only the third time in the last 75 years the supreme court was identifying something, anything that was beyond congress's immense power under the commerce clause. the tension in the room was palpable. you had conservatives in the room crying tears of joy, liberals crying for exactly the opposite reason. and all of a sudden out of the clear view the winds shifted.

the wind went out of the sales of conservatives and into the sales of the liberals. as the chief justice continued to explain to the dismay and shock of many of us that even though congress lacked the power to tell individual americans they have to buy health insurance, not just any health insurance that that kind of health insurance congress in its infinite wisdom deems necessary, that power could somehow be exercised under a taxing clause. this was a shocker. it was a shocker in part because the chief justice in his hand down announcement left something out, left out a piece of the puzzle that i didn't get to see until after a left the courtroom, the courts simultaneously concluded the penalty attached to the individual mandate was not a tax of the anti injunction claus but

the court counterintuitive lee went on to hold that it is a tax for constitutional purposes. they dealt with this in one paragraph saying tax for some purposes might not be a tax for other purposes and that is the way it crumbles. and congress gets to decide that but congress doesn't get the tax for constitutional purpose. in never quite explained why the standard was more rigid on one side than it was on the other nor did he make any effort to explain why the court should be so willing to expand congress's power. when done and continues to be a roller-coaster ride. continued to tantalize, taunt and torture conservatives by moving to the next step of the analysis, going to the medicaid expansion provisions, explaining to us that for the first time in its history the court had

actually identified something congress had done that violated the anti coercion principle of the constitution, that congress had unconstitutionally coerced the states and that this was not tolerable. conservatives were buoyed up only to have the wind taken out of their sails again with the court's novel instruction with this very unprecedented remedy, a remedy that said this is unconstitutional but we're just going to order the government not to do that which the statute empowers the government to do. the affordable care act specifically said the secretary may withdraw the existing federal medicaid revenue stream from the states that refuse to expand their medicaid programs. along the lines contemplated the affordable care act, give this power to the secretary. but that which congress gives the chief justice takes away. he did with the stroke of a pen.

what we saw that day was something very interesting. i struggled as i left the courtroom that day, talking to reporters who gathered to get reaction from members of congress who reviewed the decision. i heard myself quickly expressing a degree of optimism and even enthusiasm for this decision. the court had drawn a line in the sand on the commerce clause, the court had for the first time actually utilize the anti coercion principal to declare something unconstitutional. but no sooner had the words left my mouth, no sooner had i expressed that thought than i realized it was a very limited purpose victory. i don't mean to demean or discount the fact that it was a good thing, that due to the efforts of lawyers like randy barnett who are here with us today, we got a limited purpose

victory. my point today is we can't overlook what we lost that day. we lost something very important. what we lost was the right the we have americans to live in a society in which our national government operates according to the separation of powers principle in the constitution. the separation of powers is important because we can't have a court making laws, entrusted only to the elected congress and yet that is exactly what happened that day. the supreme court rewrote the affordable care at not once but twice, first in deciding that that which is a penalty and according to nearly a century's worth of precedent was a penalty because of the fact that it imposed a financial exaction as a result of a failure to comply with an affirmative command of

law was somehow a tax, that required a rewrite of the statute, and amendment of the statute. not just any rights or amendment but the kind of amendment congress itself had been unable to achieve support to enact. i found it very significant that congress had tried to pass the individual mandate as a tax provision, tried to enforce it with a tax. they failed to achieve the necessary votes for reasons we all understand. is really difficult to get a new tax passed in congress. that is what happened here. they couldn't get the votes. they couldn't get it passed but it didn't matter at the end of the day because the chief justice wrote it and turned the penalty into a tax. it got even worse than that when he wrote it yet again in order to erase power that the statute affirmatively granted to the secretary of health and human services.

we lost the opportunity to have our laws written by those of our own choosing, but men and women accountable to the people at regular intervals ever two years in the case of representatives and six years in the case of senators. we can't overlook the fact because there are two kinds of constraints we face in our constitutional system. one constrained, the one we are often more inclined to focus on as lawyers is the judicial constraints. if congress does something, if that something is repugnant to the constitution the court is supposed to step in and invalidate it. the court is supposed to serve as a check. the court can serve that function if at the end of the day it is unwilling to exercise that power. so the judicial check was removed in this case. the court faced with constitutional defects overcame those defects by regrading the statute but did so in a way that makes matters worse by virtue of

the fact that it got rid of the second kind of check, the political check because after this ruling is no longer a death knell if you can't get legislation passed in a manner that is constitutional, don't worry because the court will rewrite it. the court will take care of the judicial backstop and the political backstop as well. this isn't okay. is not ok especially because this will further facilitate the erosion of another of the most important principles, that of federalism. the notion that the power of the federal government is limited, the powers of congress are few and those reserves to the states are numerous and indefinite. for this at the end of the day is not something we can embrace and accept as freedom loving americans. certainly not as judicial conservatives. this is not something that i think we should phrase. i want to make clear i have

nothing but profound professional respect for chief justice roberts. he is a good and decent man and for the most part he has been an outstanding jurist throughout the course of his career but make no mistake, this was a sharp aberration from that professional standard he had established early in his career. i hope and expect that this will prove to be just that, an aberration and will not be something we can expect more of in the future. if this is something we can expect more of in the future, we will have found ourselves not only not benefiting, and we find ourselves, facing more burdens. overrule of law requires more than that. when we look at the reaction

some in the community, some immediately praised it. conservatives immediately said this is a decision, this was the mastermind the decision, he preserved the institutional credibility of the court, preserve his power as the chief justice to look out for the court's own institutional interests. he did that by showing the public he wasn't partisan, wasn't going to take one side or the other but charges of middle ground and cut it down the middle. this is a good justification even though a lot of self professed conservatives claimed it to be such. it isn't one because we have to remember jurists take an oath to decide each case objectively on the basis of the law and the fact before them and they will decide that case regardless of how they think the public might

react to it. looking out for the institutional credibility of the court to the extent that means the public's opinion of the court is not only a good justification for changing your opinion, for altering your judicial analysis, it is a particularly pernicious evil within the judicial system, not something we can respect. to the extent that this was just an idea of let's split the decision so that it is evenhanded because that is fair, the chief justice i don't think believed that was a good thing and none of us think that is a good thing. we have to remember that in what became solomon's most famous case, his purpose was never to apply the law in the fashion that he prescribed. he was on a fact-finding mission. his only objective in suggesting they split the baby was not to split the baby.

the law didn't require it. it certainly wouldn't have even allowed it. had been undertaken that effort neither party would have gone home happy. what he did in that case was simply to uncover the truth. it was never intended to result in the splitting of the baby. unfortunately in this case, what we were left with was an attempt, i believe, by a court that was determined to give each side some of what it wanted but sometimes when jurors attempt to do that, and consider that an end unto itself, lot of results of harm would have resulted in solomon's most famous case. we have before us a number of challenges as a nation. i think those challenges can be made easier or more difficult as a result of our willingness and ability to communicate the reasons why is so important we live under government that recognizes restraints on its own

power, that we recognize each branch of government has its own power and shouldn't step on any other branch's power and we have got to stand up for the principle that not every power should be exercised at the national level. the more we stand for these principles, and popular as they may be, difficult to explain as they may be, i tend to believe our best days really will be ahead of us as americans. americans are smart. americans are able to recognize truth. truth resonates with the american people but in order for it to resonate it has to come from us. we have to speak it. we have to identify it. we have to identify error where we see error. this is one instance where error has occurred and i hope we won't ever shrink from the task of identifying error especially when it jeopardize the health,

vitality of our god-given constitutional system. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have time for two questions may be. >> good afternoon, senator lee. this is the third time ahead heard you speaking you are ever more inspiring every time. go back and look at chief justice roberts's confirmation hearing he was asked many times about his theory of restraint and deference. he was never asked to articulate his theory of limited government. something judiciary committee could do in the future to avoid perhaps the kind of restraint,

the blind restraint we got in the obamacare decision? >> yes. glad you asked that question. this is something i bring up regularly in my short, almost two years in the senate, we have yet to process any supreme court nominees, we process with some regularity lower court judges. it doesn't matter whether they are district judges or circuit judges imac a practice of asking them what their views are on the enumerated powers doctrine and are frequently will ask them to identify even if it requires some degree of speculation, what if anything falls outside of congress's power under the commerce clause? i make it a little more difficult for them by telling them they can't identify lopez

or morrison and now i will add to that nfib as the basis of their theory something falls outside the government's power. you find it quite interesting to watch the responses. a lot of them look as if i have asked them to insult their mother or something like that, some of them look at me as if i have asked them to derive pie to the 8 hundredth decimal from memory. it is an important question that needs to be asked a lot more often. i also think it is interesting to watch what happens when the question is asked at the supreme court. i thought was interesting to watch variations of that question be asked during the nfib arguments and listen to the solicitor general have and hot and ultimately not come up with anything that is beyond

congress's power. >> your response to president obama's appointments of three individuals, after some initial votes, all the nominees, some of them came up with and i was wondering, the assurances given that that will not repeat and that is why it is more flexible later on, and will there be a similar response from you or your colleagues or both of you should senator reid decide to filibuster at the beginning of the thirteenth congress? >> the recess appointment issue, this was an important issue for me. when president obama made four appointments that he identified as recess appointments on

january 4th, 2012, 3 to the nlrb and one beating richard coeur dray to head the consumer financial protection bureau. he wrote with precedent, people from both parties have been responding to this by saying every president or nearly every president has made recess appointment. the other party always complained get over it, grow up. those who say that overlook something important. this one was unprecedented because as far as i have been able to ascertain through my research the first time, the only time in history any president has purported to exercise a recess appointment power at a time when the senate according to its own rules was not in recess, is significant that just 24 hours before these appointments were made on january 3rd, 2012, the senate

held its opening convening session of session ii of the 112th congress. congresses consist of two sessions, session i being the first session and session ii being the second. it convened in its inaugural session of the second session twenty-four hours earlier and according to the senate's own rules and time honored precedent and tradition, we were not adjourned for purposes relevant to the recess appointment clause. so that is why i signal my displeasure at this, have to think of something in order to keep it in the news because it is important people continue to talk about it. i voted no on the number of judicial appointments since then after that point. toward the end of the year, i lifted my categorical no vote policy only because senate republican conference had by that point responded to what the

president did by invoking the rule refusing to process additional judicial nominees within a certain category beyond that point. i regarded that as a sufficient response. i said at the outset until such time as my party respond or get insurance from the president this won't happen again i am going to continue to vote no. as to the second part of your question, if harry reid undertakes this nuclear option of tinkering with the filibuster rule, if as we anticipate he tries to shut down the process of cloture votes on motions to proceed, we will regard that as a threat to the institution and a threat to our rules, a threat to a system that made the senate supposedly the greatest deliberative legislative body in the world and there will be a

strong proportional response. i can't tell you what that will be in part because we don't know what form harry reid's efforts might take nor are we certain he is going to do it yet or convince him it is not in his interest to do it, but we are not going to take kindly to that. [applause] >> this is a wonderful to have you here senator, this is a double feature this afternoon and i have a privilege of also introducing our next speaker, u.s. senator ted cruise from texas. deuce two years ago when he came up to me and others in the room, said he was contemplating a run for the u.s. senate and asked for reaction. trying hard not to pour water

over ted's noble commitment to public service i resisted the temptation to whether what would have instinctively rolled off of most of our tongues when a friend confronts us with such a request for advice. are you crazy? do you have a fever? have you sought professional help for this deviant behavior? taking a slightly different tack i asked the usual questions. is it the right time politically? do you really think the money is there? is your family prepared for this? have you checked all the necessary boxes back home in texas? any of you who note ted crews would guess he responded to those questions looking rather reflect a man discerning, but you knew below the surface that he was optimistic and rearing to go. he wanted to do this. from his experiences with the bush campaign and his bid for attorney general in new he was ready for the political fray. he probably was not sure whether

the timing was right to elect orally he probably knew from his experiences as solicitor general of texas as an official in washington during the bush said ministration and as a former law clerk, chief justice william rehnquist, it was important to get to the business of trying to defend the system of limited constitutional government in the halls of washington sooner rather than later. by the end of the conversation huckabee anything but thankful that he wanted to run and hopeful for success. ted's drive, optimism, and zealous pursuit of public service out of commitment to the constitution paid off. with great sacrifice from him, his wife heidi and their family, ted stands before us as senator elect from the state of texas and we are all the better for it because we have in the senate a good man with extraordinary skill and intellect have an

unparalleled and unflinching commitment to the constitution of small and limited government. i have no doubt, no doubt that ted cruise will quickly emerge as one of congress's key spokesman and leaders for revival of the structural constitution standing alongside senator mike lee. please extend a warm welcome to longtime fellow federalist, a u.s. senator elected crews of texas. [applause] >> thank you the

federalist society seemed like a major power but it is truly breathtaking how we have journeyed together. the first thing i had to say to everyone here, there are a lot of men and women in this room who believed in this crazy, improbable journey when no one in their right mind would have. who expressed the same forbearance leonard discussed.

although i have to admit the are you frigging crazy was implied. but leonard is too diplomatic to actually have said that out loud. i have to tell you two years ago i sat in this room and listened to than brand new senator mike lee stand and give a speech that was just jaw dropping. let me be very clear. there is no united states senator, in the u.s. senate remotely like mike lee. [applause] i tell you afterwards, he and i went and visited -- first time we met and we spend the next couple of hours debating constitutional law, and brand-new senator

elect, and that is very down in the bowels there. pretty sure i saw minutes wandering around. i spent a couple hours with mike walking around, i remember it was this friday because it was the day that committee assignments were due, he handed in his request i remember one of the things we've talking about at the time was the national debt. and estimated the value of the land owned by the united states government. it was at $14 trillion. and rather than the united

states the parent being the largest landowner in the world, and we begin discussing that, in the presence of a fellow federalist. he mike was the first major national figure and rightfully launched. it was just a month or two later visiting it after dinner talking about the senate and what can i do to help? and he looked over and says i can do that i can do that and they look at their shoes and didn't want to argue with their boss too much.

he jumped out and endorsed me in the senate when he had not been in the senate 30 days. one of the first acts that signified mike lee was not going to be a typical senator. when a lot of you jump on board, when we started i was quite literally at 2% in the polls. the margin of error was 3%. if my math services--technically a could have been at-1%. might have been the case that 1% of texans would have gone to the polls and written not cruz. we went through a $50 million project. most expensive primary in the entire country. i can tell you you have not

lived until you have had $35 million in nasty attack ads running against you. midway through, my wife watching one of the ads turned to me and said goodness gracious, i didn't realize you were such a rotten guy. we were outspent 3-1. in any other race i should have been road kill. i should have been an armadillo by the side of the freeway. for those of you who are not texans, go look it up. we saw something extraordinary happened. we saw thousands and thousands of tea party leaders and business leaders and conservative activists all over the state of texas come together. begin knocking on doors, making phone calls and reaching out to their friends and we went from 2% in the polls to not just winning the primary but winning

by 14 points. it was an incredible testament to the grass roots, to the way politics should be. the main message i want to convey to folks today is a combination of retrospectives. retrospective asking what happened? last tuesday? on the election? the election wasn't pretty. prospect of asking where do conservatives go moving forward? i think those two questions are closely intertwined and i am going to cut to the punch line first and then go back and get to that. the punch line is what the federalist society has done in the world of law in three decades has been extraordinary. jane meyer and i were visiting

before hand and jane laughed and said when you and i visited you said you were going to run two years ago, jane said i foolishly thought you could win. imac and said that is a side of our collective naivety. three decades ago when the federalist society was founded the missions of this organization were impossible to achieve. it took a bunch of naive idealists oblivious to the reality of conventional wisdom. to do what we did to the law. what i am going to suggest to you is collectively what we do to politics. what we have done to the law. where has the federalist society gone in two decades, it was a

different legal world. this organization, talking about the law schools trying to shut down federalist society groups from bringing in speakers. because we are winning the arguments. our ideas are right. go back and read a statutory interpretation case from the 1970s. they begin with we have before us this statutory question, legislative history is as follows. therefore -- go back -- many of those decisions you can't even find in the statutory text in the opinion. may be as a footnote if your interested in what statutes we're talking about here is the citation to it. go look it up. farm more relevant is the subcommittee report and the comments one member of congress have on the subway to get a cup

of coffee. originally didn't exist. what did this organization do collectively? we started making the arguments, we started making the argument that what matters, we have a constitution, the constitutional protections matter. read any statutory interpretation decision today. everybody today starts with texts. they don't always follow it but they at least start with it. for some it is the thing to be gotten around but at least they are acknowledging it is the thing to be gotten around. don't look at a decision like d.c. versus heller. that was a tremendous victory for second amendment rights. one of the thing that strikes principal dissent. it purports to be original.

not very bad original -- what a statement of victory that in a word of the parisians we are all original lists. that is a sign of what happened in the legal world, we have won many of these arguments. the legal world is transformed because of the men and women in this room taking a principal focus and winning the argument and my view in the political world, this is an organization that reveres the constitution. i would guess if i asked the people in this room how many of you would like to be a federal judge? half the hands would go up. but that constitution, federal judicial incredibly important. and article 3 of the

constitution. there's a reason the framers began with article i and article xi, the courts and political branches were inextricably intertwined. we may well see the consequences of this last election the last four years. in a way that i think is paramount. the press after an election in which republicans don't do well. it always writes the headline. the problem with those pesky conservatives. that was written before the election was over. if only republicans would become like democrats they would have won this election. in my view the election results on tuesday have won a simple explanation. we didn't win the argument. we didn't even make the

argument. our country was built on foundational revolutionary ideas. think of the founding fathers who fought revolution first with bayonets. [applause] and for the record there are today more bayonets in the military then there were in 1960. [applause] >> but then a more important revolution. a revolution of ideas. for millennia, we were told our rights came from monarchs, then they came from kings and queens and whatever we might enjoy workrooms given by grace by the rulers. the framers of our constitution

inverted that entire concept of sovereignty. they began from the proposition that our rights don't come from a king or queen or even a president. they come from god almighty. and the constitution exists to protect those rights and limit government to serve as jefferson put it, change to bind the mischief of government. for millennia there have been two ways of ordering a society, one based on free-market an entrepreneurship and individual responsibility and that has consistently led to the greatest opportunity and prosperity ever seen across the globe. the other is government control and socialism. that has consistently time and time again lead to shared suffering and misery. it is not accidental in the

debate over obamacare, there's not a single democrat public and check back to the current nation on earth that have socialized medicine and said that is what we want. because the effect over and over again of putting it into practice, getting off of the ivory tower has not been pretty, has been ratcheting, poor quality, government bureaucrats getting between us and our doctors. we didn't make that argument. what was the high point of this presidential campaign? without exception everyone said the first debate between romney and obama. so one time we actually contested ideas, presented two viewpoints and directions for the country and then inevitably there are these mandarins in

politics who give the voice don't show any contrast, don't rock the boat so by the third debate i am pretty certain mitt romney actually french test barack obama. [laughter] >> i have no doubt that there's a focus group somewhere of undecided ohio voters who have lived in a cave the last 30 years who decided they like that. don't show any disagreement with the president, don't rock the boat, or have a personality contests. those turn out so well for us. our ideas work. their ideas don't work.

even that first debate, house striking was it when mitt romney pressed obama his response was under bill clinton there was great economic prosperity. the whole land of obama is about bill clinton and how nifty the economy was under him. i would have given a limb to see mitt romney turned to him and say mr. president, i knew bill clinton. [laughter] >> our ideas work, their ideas don't. the last four years our economy has grown 1.5% a year. that is less than half the historical average. for 70 years we average 3.3% growth a year. this president is fond of saying -- the worst economy in the history of the universe and

everything by the way is george w. bush's fault. he doesn't have much historical memory when he makes that argument. any of you remember in 1978-1979? double digit unemployment, 22% interest rates, gas lines, stagflation, in 1980 and very different president got elected. ronald reagan liked barack obama and inherited a struggling economy. and reagan implemented policies 180 degrees opposite, instead of jacking up taxes. he cut taxes. instead of exploding spending and the debt he restrained the growth of spending instead of unleashing the hounds of regulators. when i think of regulators are can't help thinking of mr. burns

saying release the hounds. instead of releasing the hounds of regulators on small-businesses and entrepreneurs reagan limited regulation and the result was one of the most extraordinary burst of economic productivity our nation has ever seen. the fourth year of reagan's presidency was 1984 precisely corresponding to the fourth year of obama's presidency. anyone know what gdp growth was in 1984? 7.2. seven.2%. our ideas work, there's don't. if you want growth, jobs, if you want twenty three million people struggling to find work to get jobs, the answer is simply you need growth. you have got to reduce and simplify the tax burden, reduced regulation and an shane small

businesses and a entrepreneurs. it speaks volumes that 50% of americans who voted on election day believe the economy was george w. bush's fault. there's a reason for that. president obama said that every single day and twice on sunday and we never responded. republicans were so terrified of uttering the words george w. bush that we never responded. let me give you another example. you are familiar with the quote war on women. the president, every democrat throughout this campaign saying republicans want to take away contraceptives. what putter and complete nonsense. i don't know a single republican on the face of the globe who

wants to take away anybody's contraceptives. my wife and i had two little girls. i am thrilled we don't have 17. [laughter] >> not nearly as thrilled as she is. this attack was always deliberate mendacity and by the way we got the foreshadowing, way back when, the republican primary when george stephanopoulos was moderating. as an aside why are people like george stephanopoulos moderating republican primaries? [applause] >> if you remember stephanopoulos asked what is your view on the right to contraceptives, that wasn't an accident. i guarantee you that was the democratic attack. we will say it is a war on

women. everyone is saying what you talking about? nobody was talking about contraceptives until they decided to cook up this attack. what the issue was really about, it wasn't too long ago the democratic party was proud to be the first major party to nominate the first two catholics to the candidates for president of the united states. what do you think al smith or john f. kennedy would have said to a president who says to the catholic church change your religious beliefs or i will use my power as president to shut down your hospitals and charities. that is a radical view, that is an extreme view. never had anything to do with contraceptives which everybody has a right to get and nobody disagrees with that. this was always about government forcing americans to violate

their religious conscience. and yet despite having an administration that had such a radical view the president got 50% of the catholic vote. 71% of hispanics, the vast majority of whom are catholics if we once make the argument in the catholic community, we didn't make the argument and if you don't make the argument you don't win the argument. going forward, my focus in the u.s. senate, unfortunately in the minority, going to be working to cut spending, to push regulatory reform and tax reform, to get economic growth back. and when i ask each of you to bring the same creativity, the same diligence, the same thinking and passion that each of you have individually brought to changing our legal world,